Proper and Correct Interpretation of Artefacts during Autopsy

Post-mortem artefacts (misleading signs) are one of the commonly encountered problems in routine autopsy. They lead to wrong interpretation of findings in large number of medico-legal cases especially at the hands of an inexperienced autopsy surgeon. Responsibility of correct interpretation of artefacts lies on medical jurist. Any type of artefacts must be interperated correctly as it may adversely affect post-mortem findings. Any change produced or feature introduced in a body after death which is accidentally or physiologically unrelated to the natural state of the body is termed as artefacts. This may adversely affect the course of justice in the court of law. The underlying biological processes that a human body or its remains undergoes after death are complex and, as with other biological phenomena, there is a broad range of variables influencing post-mortem changes by the alteration of the underlying progress of tissue destruction. The understanding of the artefacts is of great importance for the forensic pathologist and medical examiner as a such artefacts may be introduced before death (therapeutic artefacts), at the time of death (agonal artefacts) or after death (post-mortem artefacts) So it is recommended that all the physician concerned with medico-legal works, especially autopsies, should have detailed knowledge with these artefacts. Purpose of present review paper is to discuses and update the knowledge about different types of artefacts commonly encountered during the post-mortem examination. This paper also attempts to highlight the more important and common ones as far as known.